A field of application of the invention relates to controlling trains and providing assistance in driving trains, such as very high speed trains, regional trains, suburban trains, subway trains, trams, or the like. Such trains can be driven by a human on board, or automatically.
The invention seeks typically but not exclusively to implement the European Rail Traffic Management System/European Train Control System (ERTMS/ETCS), referred to below as “the ERTMS”. This system aims to establish an international standard for systems for automatically controlling trains and, in particular aims to make cross-boarder traffic interoperable, and to make train control systems interoperable from one country to another and to make it possible to increase the density of train traffic on the same track with an optimum and uniform level of safety.
One of the ways of increasing the density of the traffic on the same line consists in reducing the distance between successive trains.
Thus, the ERTMS allocates to each train a location specification specifying a location to which the train is permitted to run on the line, it being necessary for the tail of the preceding train to be situated in front of that location.